bandwidth – Lodginghttp://lodgingmagazine.com
Official Publication of the AH&LAThu, 17 Aug 2017 21:37:31 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.1Expanding Bandwidth to Keep Up with Guests’ Tech Needshttp://lodgingmagazine.com/expanding-bandwidth-to-keep-up-with-guests-tech-needs/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/expanding-bandwidth-to-keep-up-with-guests-tech-needs/#respondThu, 20 Jul 2017 12:00:48 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=31998A decade ago, guests may have brought their laptops along on a business trip. Today, they’re bringing their smart phone, tablet, smart watch, laptop, and more. Wireless internet has quickly become if not the most, certainly one of the most important hotel amenities. In the last few years, bandwidth needs and capacities have exploded in the hospitality industry, according to John Garland,the IT manager at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. Many older wireless systems simply can’t support ...

]]>A decade ago, guests may have brought their laptops along on a business trip. Today, they’re bringing their smart phone, tablet, smart watch, laptop, and more. Wireless internet has quickly become if not the most, certainly one of the most important hotel amenities. In the last few years, bandwidth needs and capacities have exploded in the hospitality industry, according to John Garland,the IT manager at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. Many older wireless systems simply can’t support the emerging technological needs of hotel guests.

The Sheraton Dallas Hotel recently implemented a new system to increase its bandwidth capabilities from one to 10 gigabits. The hotel’s new system allows it to spilt its 10 gigabits between both meeting spaces and guestrooms, depending on the needs of guests. “More bandwidth opens us up to more options. We can tailor it to create the best possible guest experience,” Garland says.

With a constant growth in technology and endless new devices, the hotel doesn’t want to fall behind. “Once guests are used to the newest standards, they start to demand them,” Garland describes. “If your hotel can’t support the newest technology, then it is an inferior hotel.”

According to Garland, upgrades will not only distinguish a property from its competition, but also “future-proof” the hotel. “Hotels need to try to future-proof their properties,” he explains. “We decided to upgrade our structure to the point that the near future’s technology cannot put a dent in our guest experience.”

Prior to the upgrade, the staff at the Sheraton discovered they couldn’t best serve its guests because of its low bandwidth. Many guests wanted to bring the same technology they have at home to guestrooms and meeting areas. Ultimately, the hotel rethought its technology strategy because of this demand. “We want to position ourselves in a way that allows guests to bring their office to our property,” says Garland. “We want to emulate that home experience while simultaneously filling the rest of guests’ needs.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/expanding-bandwidth-to-keep-up-with-guests-tech-needs/feed/0How Much Bandwidth Does Your Property Need?http://lodgingmagazine.com/how-much-bandwidth-does-your-property-need/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/how-much-bandwidth-does-your-property-need/#respondThu, 16 Oct 2014 13:00:27 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=14680Two years ago, BioMarin, a pharmaceutical firm based in San Rafael, Calif., called Inn Marin to book an offsite training session. This wasn’t unusual since the 69-room independent hotel is located eight miles up the road from the company’s headquarters. And with only 35 people attending, the meeting requirements were far from onerous. But there was one last-minute request that nearly caused Inn Marin to lose this booking. BioMarin needed an Internet connection that was ...

]]>Two years ago, BioMarin, a pharmaceutical firm based in San Rafael, Calif., called Inn Marin to book an offsite training session. This wasn’t unusual since the 69-room independent hotel is located eight miles up the road from the company’s headquarters. And with only 35 people attending, the meeting requirements were far from onerous. But there was one last-minute request that nearly caused Inn Marin to lose this booking. BioMarin needed an Internet connection that was six megabits per second (Mbps) or faster to allow 20 desktop computers to log into the corporate server in San Rafael. And the DSL line coming into the hotel was only capable of 1 Mbps down and 1/2 Mbps up. “I just about had a heart attack,” says Inn Marin General Manager Robert Marshall. “That’s when I realized that we couldn’t keep doing business like this.”

After getting a handful of BioMarin computers connected and successfully pulling off the meeting, Marshall and Kirk Hylan, owner of INsite Networks, Inn Marin’s IT consultant, resolved to upgrade the hotel’s Internet bandwidth to something more usable. The process took nine months and numerous consultations with broadband providers in the area before the two found the right people at Comcast to bring a fiber-optic line directly to their door. The cable company was looking to make a big push into the commercial broadband space and saw a unique opportunity with Inn Marin to show off the capabilities of its new fiber product.

High-speed fiber was a good fit for the Inn Marin because the hotel had the foresight to lay fiber-optic telecom lines between all the buildings when the five-acre property went through a renovation in 1999. After doing some infrastructure improvements to the nearby area, Comcast hooked the hotel up with broadband that delivered more than 400 Mbps up and down. Marshall was giddy at the possibilities. “I wanted to put a banner up on the freeway that said, ‘Get 400 Mbps here.’”

And while this was by far the fastest speed available in the area, Marshall is quick to point out that fiber is capable of much more. “When the market matches these speeds, we’ll be able to turn it up to 800 Mbps,” he says.

While Inn Marin now has a huge bandwidth lead on its comp set, Marshall knows that accommodating the Internet demands of guests and group business is one of the trickiest things for hoteliers to do right now. Yet properly allocating bandwidth across a property has become absolutely essential to good hotel operations. “No matter how big that pipe is, it’s never enough,” says Arnon Levy, president and CEO of Guest-Tek. His company made waves earlier this year by acquiring the networking technology company iBahn. “Imagine if you had everyone watching Netflix in their hotel rooms—the bandwidth requirements would be unbelievable.” Levy adds that most hotels will be performing a balancing act over the next few years to figure out how to match the right amount of bandwidth provided to what’s being requested by guests. “It’s going to be very difficult to make everybody happy.”

Usage trends aren’t the only factor hotels need to account for. “The number of devices per room, isn’t just one or two anymore,” says Thomas Cheng, senior product line manager at Netgear, a long-time networking equipment manufacturer. “It’s like four or five, six or seven. If you have a family checking in and everybody brings at least one or two devices, then it can add up pretty fast.”

Both recommend that hoteliers take a centralized approach to installing broadband and advise using a controller that can orchestrate the communication between all the Internet access points scattered across the property.

Marshall is in the process of adding a controller that matches the capabilities of Inn Marin’s new broadband connection. “It was such a long process that it was better for us to wait until the connection was finalized before we bought the equipment, since everything has changed so quickly,” he says.

Once it’s in place, the new equipment also will control how the broadband is parceled out to the various buildings on the property, Marshall says. “So we control how much goes to the guestrooms, for instance, and can give priority to certain types of usage.” He adds that the hotel will do its best to have 400 Mbps in the meeting room to make it an ideal environment for video conferencing.

“Internet is the fourth utility, so the quality of the service is really important,” says Fred Reeder, CEO of access gateway specialist Nomadix. “Adding high-quality bandwidth is important but not when there are other factors that aren’t allowing your guests to use the bandwidth that you’re making available to them.”

He adds that hoteliers need to know how the bandwidth is currently being used so they can prioritize different types of usage. Packet inspection equipment can help you figure out if guests are using the Internet to download movie torrents or to make voice over IP calls, and then you can prioritize and make more bandwidth available for one activity over the other. “You don’t want to overpay for excess bandwidth when it isn’t necessary,” he says.

This idea of optimizing the actual bandwidth available to a hotel is echoed by Netgear’s Cheng. “Budget is a concern because a lot of hotels are providing Internet as a free service, so they want to make sure they don’t sink too much money into what they consider cost-centered spending.”

Levy takes the cost idea even further, advocating for ways to make high-speed Internet a revenue producer. “I’m a massive proponent of charging for Internet,” Levy says. “Bandwidth is not like coffee in that you know that guests are just going to have one or two cups. Some are going to drink gallons.”

According to Levy, there’s zero price elasticity when it comes to high-speed Internet. “Historically, there’s no difference in the actual usage for hotels that charge for high-speed Internet versus usage for hotels that don’t charge.”

He adds that the only way to satisfy the needs of the clients in the future is for hotels to create some sort of a revenue source from high-speed Internet and then reinvest the money back into the network and in buying more bandwidth. “That’s the only way that, moving forward, you’re going to be able to keep up to the demands of the consumer.”

For Marshall at Inn Marin, the bandwidth improvements mean that he can attract more groups and business travelers looking for reliable high-speed connections back to corporate headquarters. “We’ve been talking to local companies about bringing more meetings here,” he says. “There’s also the tech corridor just down Interstate 101. We believe there’s a lot of business in the area that we need to develop.” Marshall says the next upgrade in the works for Inn Marin’s new fiber broadband network will come when Comcast adds a line for voice that will provides free calls across the entire United States. He adds, “Of course, we’ll pass this saving along to guests.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/how-much-bandwidth-does-your-property-need/feed/0The Latest Ways to Deliver In-Room Entertainmenthttp://lodgingmagazine.com/the-latest-ways-to-deliver-in-room-entertainment/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/the-latest-ways-to-deliver-in-room-entertainment/#commentsMon, 19 May 2014 17:51:27 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=11664Long gone are the days of wooing guests with free color TV and HBO on a roadside sign. The changing demands of travelers coupled with ever-expanding improvements in mobile technology have forced hoteliers to not only upgrade their hardware but also completely rethink their guests’ entire in-room entertainment experience. With so many sophisticated media options readily available everywhere from living rooms to doctor’s offices, consumers come to hotels expecting more, especially when it comes to ...

]]>Long gone are the days of wooing guests with free color TV and HBO on a roadside sign. The changing demands of travelers coupled with ever-expanding improvements in mobile technology have forced hoteliers to not only upgrade their hardware but also completely rethink their guests’ entire in-room entertainment experience. With so many sophisticated media options readily available everywhere from living rooms to doctor’s offices, consumers come to hotels expecting more, especially when it comes to high-def TVs, diverse content options, and high-speed Internet.

“The in-room entertainment experience is really moving toward an environment that mimics the quality of what customers have in their living rooms with smart TV, mobile device access, apps, widgets, and more,” says Fred Crespo, director of technology and business development, hospitality sales, and marketing for Samsung. “Hoteliers must meet or exceed the technology that guests already have at home.”

It starts with the TV. While most travelers check in to a hotel packing multiple mobile devices, the advent of smartphones and tablets has not diminished the importance of the television. “TV is the hub of the in-room entertainment experience,” Crespo says. “The TV is the design and media center of the hotel room. It’s the first thing guests see and has the greatest impact on the overall impression of an establishment.”

But not just any TV. Cathode ray tube TVs have become a relic of the past, replaced by flat-panel high-def TVs. And Crespo says TVs have also increased in size, moving from a standard 32-inch to 40- and even 46-inch screens.

Of course, a state-of-the-art TV is nothing without the right content. “At present and for the foreseeable future, offering a high-definition signal on an attractive HD set with a channel lineup that guests want is going to be part of our landscape and has to be something we take seriously,” says Josh Weiss, vice president of brand and guest technology for Hilton Worldwide.

Hilton, which recently completed a study on guests’ viewing habits, found that guests needed only 10 or so channels to be happy. “The hard part of the story is they are different channels for everyone,” Weiss adds. “The ability to please everyone with a small lineup—as was the case 10 to 20 years ago—is no longer the case. That’s why it’s really important to provide as many HD channels as possible along with an easy-to-navigate and attractive interactive programming guide so they can decide what’s on when.”

Hilton announced in April that it will partner with DirecTV to deliver service to its hotel guests across the country. The relationship will allow hoteliers to offer guests more than 160 HD channels, including premium sports and movie content at discounted rates. The package also includes a DirecTV interactive program guide that hotels can customize with property-specific information. They’ll also have the option of services like DVR—a feature that Weiss says may be more suited for its extended-stay brands. (A plan is also in the works that will enable Hilton HHonors members to get free stays or points if they sign up for DirecTV service at home.)

Most consumers with digital cable are accustomed to the convenience of interactive program guides (IPGs), menus that allow them to scroll through and review available programming. “Providing that living-room experience can be one of the biggest challenges in the hospitality sector, and implementing an IPG is one of the best ways to close the gap,” Crespo says. “Most customers will already be familiar with the IPG integrated in the set-top boxes from their TV providers at home, and this makes it an intuitive addition for content discovery.”

And today’s IPGs need to connect with a wide range of platforms and systems. “In-room entertainment is reaching a place where the TV becomes the conduit for content delivery,” Crespo says, “whether coming from the Internet, a mobile device, apps, or traditional content delivery feeds.” Thanks to portable technology (and content), travelers are no longer reliant on hotels for entertainment once they’ve checked in. As such, enhancing their ability to engage with these personal devices has become the centerpiece of the next generation of in-room entertainment.

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/the-latest-ways-to-deliver-in-room-entertainment/feed/1New Service Tests and Rates Hotel WiFihttp://lodgingmagazine.com/hotel-wifi-test/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/hotel-wifi-test/#respondWed, 20 Nov 2013 20:38:07 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=8258Fast and reliable wireless Internet access continues to be a challenge for hotels and remains a sticking point for guests who are increasingly dependent on mobile technology. According to J.D. Power’s 2013 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study, WiFi access was the top guest complaint, with 31 percent of respondents saying they had an issue with their Internet service in terms of connection and speed. And in a recent study from Forrester Consulting, 34 ...

]]>Fast and reliable wireless Internet access continues to be a challenge for hotels and remains a sticking point for guests who are increasingly dependent on mobile technology. According to J.D. Power’s 2013 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study, WiFi access was the top guest complaint, with 31 percent of respondents saying they had an issue with their Internet service in terms of connection and speed. And in a recent study from Forrester Consulting, 34 percent of business travelers said they would not stay in a hotel without Internet.

The debate about whether hotels should have Internet connectivity is no longer relevant, as most consumers expect it as an amenity. But all hotel wireless is not created equal. Guest satisfaction drops when service is slow and spotty—especially if a consumer pays money to connect.

In the past, the speed of a hotel’s WiFi network was not readily available to consumers until they booked a room and experienced a lightning fast or sluggishly slow connection for themselves. But Hotel WiFi Test, a new recommendation service that documents the speed and reliability of a hotel’s WiFi, is setting out to bring transparency to consumers and call out hotels with subpar service.

“Currently, not many hotels are motivated to invest in high-quality WiFi,” says Yaroslav Goncharov, founder of the service. “For most hotels, it is enough to add a ‘free WiFi’ label to the hotel description, but there is no way for potential guests to check the actual quality.”

The service works when users connected to a hotel’s WiFi network visit hotelwifitest.com and test the speed of the connection. The result of that test is then automatically linked to that specific hotel and saved in Hotel Wifi Test’s database. The results are then organized to show hotels with the best WiFi performance. Hotels with poor connectivity are bumped from the recommendation service. Users can search the site to find hotels in specific regions or cities with the best service based on user tests.

On the recommendation pages, the service provides information including the maximum speed and the bandwidth potential of the hotel; the expected speed of the WiFi service; the minimum speed provided by the test; and the confidence value, which depends on multiple factors including the number of speed tests taken, how recently the tests occurred, and the diversity of tests in terms of the time of day, day of the week, and point within the travel season.

Besides just testing connections and recommending hotels, Hotel WiFi Test allows users to engage with other consumers and with hotels by posting results pages on social media sites. When a user tweets out a results page, the Twitter handle for that specific hotel will be linked to the tweet, making hotels aware that guests are sharing the information with their networks.

“There is a reason TripAdvisor has so many reviews,” says Goncharov. “People like to help other people and to give management constructive feedback.”

The website and service is still new and is working on growing its number of users to improve its database of speed tests. But as more users begin to test hotels’ WiFi services via the site, the information provided will, theoretically, become more reliable.

“We want to convince the majority of hotels and other industry players that WiFi quality is an essential characteristic of a hotel,” says Goncharov. “Eventually, we aim to make it as easy to find precise information about a hotel’s WiFi as it is to find information about the size of the bed.”

]]>http://lodgingmagazine.com/hotel-wifi-test/feed/0Boosting Hotel Bandwidthhttp://lodgingmagazine.com/boosting-hotel-bandwidth/
http://lodgingmagazine.com/boosting-hotel-bandwidth/#commentsWed, 20 Nov 2013 17:47:15 +0000http://lodgingmagazine.com/?p=8227How much Internet bandwidth does your property need? William Murray has a simple answer: More than you currently have. His typical guest carries both a smartphone and a laptop computer or tablet, meaning that his hotels require four times more bandwidth than they did five years ago. “Everything is grabbing your WiFi the minute it comes in the door,” says Murray, the general manager of the 135-room Best Western Palm Beach Lakes and the 112-room ...

]]>How much Internet bandwidth does your property need? William Murray has a simple answer: More than you currently have. His typical guest carries both a smartphone and a laptop computer or tablet, meaning that his hotels require four times more bandwidth than they did five years ago. “Everything is grabbing your WiFi the minute it comes in the door,” says Murray, the general manager of the 135-room Best Western Palm Beach Lakes and the 112-room Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, both in West Palm Beach, Fla. He says properties must be ready to handle the demand. Guest satisfaction surveys show spotty service near the top of the list of customer complaints, and “quick-as-lightning” Internet is no longer considered a luxury—it’s a necessity.

Murray had many business travelers come to the front desk in the past to voice their dissatisfaction. “They said, ‘We’re having a meeting. My function space can’t be down. I’m sorry, but I have to leave,’” says Murray, also the president of the Palm Beach County Hotel and Lodging Association. “It’s not just a complaint at that point. It’s a revenue loss. Fast Internet is that important.”

To rectify such issues and offer a better overall experience, he switched to another Internet provider and jumped to speeds of 150 megabits per second (Mbps) at his locations, but it may not be enough. Murray has a staff member who constantly keeps tabs on Internet usage at his properties—the speed, the slow and fast times, and, if occasions arise, when they’re peaking (or getting close to it). “We are always evaluating,” says Murray. “As of now, we’re safe. However, I have a feeling in less than a year we will be bumping up to 200 Mbps.”

MGM Resorts International also just underwent a major overhaul of its wireless network infrastructure for its properties, including The Mirage, Bellagio, and Mandalay Bay, all in Las Vegas. “We wanted to be on the cutting edge of our industry,” explains Todd Walton, MGM Resorts’ vice president of production services. The multi-million dollar project, which wrapped up this fall, allows MGM Resorts to have 64,000 concurrent users on the campus-wide system, with the ability to boost that number to 120,000 in the future. This includes both convention and public spaces. (Guestrooms have their own dedicated bandwidth.) Across the properties, the company is using speeds of one gigabit per second (Gbps), burstable up to 10 Gbps. “We can carve out as much bandwidth as an individual user wants,” Walton says.

To determine MGM Resorts’ individual property needs, Walton looked at historical numbers and peak demands as well as did some educated guessing. For example, Mandalay Bay, which features 1.7 million square feet of convention and expo space, can attract 20,000 people for an event. “It’s hard to qualify what that demand will be,” he says.

Meeting space requirements are less well understood, agrees Matt Harvey, vice president of client network services for PSAV, headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill., which provides event technology services in the hotel, resort, and conference center industry. As a general rule of thumb, properties should plan to do an upgrade when they’re hitting 80 percent capacity, he says, adding that anticipating exact Internet needs too far into the future can be an exercise in futility. “The speed at which technology evolves is quicker than anyone can predict,” Harvey says. “The analogy is four years ago nobody knew what an iPad was. Now look at them.”

One of the challenges properties face comes when rethinking how they update their facility, he says. Often, they replace things, such as wallpaper, mattresses, or carpets, in 10-year cycles. “With WiFi and networks, that investment cycle is much shorter,” says Harvey. “I think it took the industry by surprise a couple years ago when owners were asked to replace their first-generation network so quickly. They assumed it was going to be like everything else. That’s not reality. They’re going to have to drop money into this every four or five years in order to keep up with consumer demand.”